


on identifying the common raven

by renquise



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Lots of feelings about the empire siblings, Undercover at a fancy rich people gala, implied past dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 13:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16662045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: Beau always hated these fancy parties. This one's no different.





	on identifying the common raven

**Author's Note:**

> A bunch of stuff about this last arc has confirmed that I really, really want Caleb and Beau to have to infiltrate a rich-people party, because their skill sets and backgrounds would make them so unnervingly good at it and also it would have so much potential to be profoundly upsetting. And also I had a lot of Thoughts about Liam talking about Caleb’s relationship to sex in the latest Talks, because hoo boy.

Beau always hated these fancy parties. 

This one’s no different. She hasn’t worn a gown like this in years, and she really didn’t fucking miss being stuffed into layers of heavy fabric. The entire thing is way too familiar for her taste, right down to the dick-measuring contest going down beside her at the buffet table, two rich assholes talking about their recent horse acquisitions. One of them is eyeing her up, like he’s evaluating what his chances are of getting under her skirts. Beau smiles at him with too many teeth. He goes back to talking about horses very quickly.

Beau snatches a glass of wine from one of the platters and wets her lips to give something for her hands to do. It’s pretty quality stuff, the kind of vintage that someone supplies when they want to scream that they have gold to spare. 

It’s surprisingly hard to pick Caleb out in this crowd, dressed as he is in a finely embroidered overcoat they stole off a guy, along with his soft leather boots and finely woven breeches. 

It’s fucking weird. Not just because Beau is used to seeing Caleb in a ratty-ass coat, but because he wears it well, shoulders straight and easy, like a man with enough money to have few cares and even less common sense. 

The two horse assholes shift closer to the buffet, and she moves to keep a good eye line on Caleb as he leans close to their mark, an advisor to the duke. 

This entire thing could be almost be funny if they didn’t have to do this. If it were all of them crashing this party, if she were competing with Jester to see who can fit the most hors d’oeuvres into their gown pockets and betting on how many rich assholes they could piss off with Caduceus cheerfully using the wrong utensils. And damn, but Molly would have loved to make these people clutch at their pearls.

But it’s just her and Caleb looking for something, anything to exchange for Jester and Nott, held hostage by a crime lord with a petty grudge against a duke. They’re going to claw their way out of this stupid situation, Beau is going to make sure of that, but fuck, seriously, they can’t ever catch a break.

In the few hours they had to prepare, Beau watched Caleb efficiently modify the coat she had procured for him, tearing open a seam to hide a handful of phosphor, tucking a small bar of iron inside his shoe, hiding a pouch with a lump of honeycomb inside a tear in the lining. All innocuous, innocent materials that could turn to weapons just as readily as her fists.

Across the room, Caleb trails the tips of his fingers around the edge of his glass, flicking a look at the advisor from beneath his eyelashes. 

Beau almost brains herself with her own wine glass because what, seriously, what the fuck is that. Caleb being coy is something that she wishes she could immediately unsee. What the fuck.

Caleb rests his fingers briefly on the man’s wrist before he dips his hand in his jacket and touches his lips, deliberately meeting the man’s eyes. The guy looks him up and down as he signals one of the servants for another drink over his shoulder. 

Then, Caleb draws away from the man, leaving him with a promising touch at his elbow. It lingers just long enough that Beau is pretty sure that even the most dense of men would get the message. The guy’s eyes track Caleb all the way across the room, a cruel leer at the corner of his mouth. 

Beau tries her best to pretend that she’s really engrossed with the petit-fours at the buffet table. 

“What the fuck. You’re good at that. How is it that you're good at that,” Beau says when Caleb draws up next to her. She isn't sure if it’s a compliment. She’s always been bad at this bit, at slipping past people’s defenses and drawing them close enough to slip a knife between their ribs. Some of her former colleagues were fucking good at it, though, and she recognizes the dance of it.

“Mm. Not so good as your Tracy act, but luckily, the man is a dumbfuck.”

She huffs out a laugh. “Fuck off. So should I be holding your hand or some shit to make him jealous?” 

“Best not. I am trying to sell him on our loveless marriage.”

“Ha. What’s the plan now, though?” 

He shrugs. “Well, I go back to him seeming appropriately attention-starved, fuck him, hope that he has something incriminating in his rooms, and Bob is your uncle.”

Wait what. Beau snaps her head back to him. “Wait, fuck him?”

“Or let him fuck me. Either or, though he seems like the kind of man who would enjoy putting a spoiled, rich idiot in his place.”

He says it so fucking mildly, like they’re discussing what supplies they need to get before they roll out of town. Her stomach turns, and it’s not just because she absolutely does not need to think about Caleb getting it on. 

The noise of the party presses hard at her ears, a muddle of clinking glasses and insincere laughter. She looks around, then grabs Caleb by the elbow and drags him into an alcove, shoving aside the heavy brocade draperies and hoping that it seemed like a married couple's spat. 

“That wasn’t the plan. I thought this was just going to be fact-finding, to see what we can gain from this guy,” she hisses under her breath.

“He seems amenable enough to seduction, and we are on a time limit. He is most likely to be keeping anything incriminating in his chambers, and this is the most expedient way of getting there without Jester and Nott,” Caleb says. “I have my components on me in case of an emergency, but I expect it will go smooth enough.”

Her throat is dry. She takes a gulp of her wine. She hasn’t been drinking to keep a clear head for this mission, and now, she feels way, way too sober. Caleb seems calm enough, but everything is screaming at her that this is a bad idea. And she’s a fucking connoisseur when it comes to bad ideas.

They did this with Fjord already, with the clusterfuck that was Avantica. It seemed fine at the time, the least terrible of a shitload of terrible options. But even she noticed Fjord drawing into himself afterwards. She still feels fucking sick about it, about the fact that they didn’t notice.

“Fjord took one for the team, yes? This is, how do you say, small beans compared to a pirate captain cultist.”

Beauregard grabs his arm. “Yeah, and we realized it was a bad fucking idea afterwards. He shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“I told him that he should do what he has to do. I can do the same.” 

Caleb looks at her, his gaze steady, and fuck, how didn’t she notice the distance there, like he’s a step beside his body. 

It’s like there’s suddenly a dark, still lake between them, shadows moving underneath the surface. She doesn’t want to look too closely at it, doesn’t want to know what it is. But she fucking has to, because apparently Caleb is already hip-deep in its waters and wading further, unnervingly familiar with its depths. 

“Your cover isn’t going to hold. You’re still skinny as fuck, even though Caduceus is feeding us pretty well. That guy isn’t going to be fooled into thinking that you’re a well-fed rich dude when you’re naked and he can count your ribs.” 

It feels desperate even to her ears, trying to find a logical angle that might catch Caleb’s methodical mind.

Caleb falters, just for a second. “I trust that I will be able to distract him enough to pass.”

“Yeah? How? Sucking his cock and hoping that he won’t want any more than that?” she hisses. 

She regrets it the moment she says it. How is she always such an asshole. She feels like a blunt force instrument at the best of times, and this feels like something that needs Jester, or Nott, or Caduceus, or, or fucking Molly. Anyone but her.

“If that’s what it takes. I am willing, Beauregard. I would rather have a cock down my throat than a noose around it,” Caleb says. 

He sounds so calm about it, and it just makes her want to grab a tray of the fine crystal wine glasses from the servers and fling it out a window. She looks frantically around for Frumpkin, because maybe Caleb will stop being fucking stupid if she can shove a tiny owl in his hands, ground him with the feel of smooth feathers, but he’s still perched high in the rafters.

She squares her shoulders. “No. Fuck this, we’re going to find another way.” 

“Did you really think that we would go up to this man at this party and simply ask him, yes hello, I would like some of your secret incriminating documents please, wonderful, would you happen to have an envelope? Of course not. And, and without Nott and Jester, we are very, very limited in our options—”

And there, there—Beau grasps desperately at the thead of panic through his end of Caleb’s words, because that feels true, feels like something she can recognize, because they’re both worried, so fucking worried, and it’s making them vicious. 

“Listen. I’ll do whatever it takes to get Nott and Jester back, too. But—but, let’s try something else first? If we need to, we can—” She gestures at Caleb, feeling sick. “But we’re not out of options yet. We got some info. Let’s see what Fjord and Caduceus came up with. See what we can do with that.”

A breath, two. The drapes around the alcove feel suffocating, the muffled noise of the party pressing in on them. The brocade has ugly, expensive gilt flowers patterned on it. It probably cost a small fortune to have it imported across the sea and up from the coast. Beau once hid from her father behind curtains like these, tracing the endless pattern with her fingers and thinking about setting it alight.

Caleb slumps in on himself. He seems smaller now, more rumpled, the fine coat sitting messily on his shoulders. More like the guy who gave her his owl to compensate for Professor Thaddeus and went peacefully skinny-dipping in the sea. Thank fuck.

“Okay. We. We will find a way, yes?” he whispers.

“Yeah, you asshole,” she says, horrified to find her voice thick. She punches his shoulder. “Don’t—don’t just do these things. We’re a team, right? We’re fucking bad at it sometimes, but. But we can make it work.”

“Ow,” Caleb says, rubbing his arm. 

“Come on. I’m going to stuff more hors d’oeuvres in my pockets for everyone, and we’re going to fucking figure this out.”

She shoves her arm to hook around his elbow, holding on to him, and steers them back into the fray. They’ve got this. They have to.


End file.
